Authors: Bernadette Marie
To hell with what she thought about relationships that were carelessly forged, she decided as his chest brushed against her sensitive nipples. Forget that she didn’t believe in love at first sight or true love at all, she tucked away the thought his mouth moved across her chest. At that moment, all she wanted was Preston Banks to kiss her until she no longer could remember why she didn’t believe in love, romance, and happily ever after.
Preston’s lips were warm on her skin and as his weight pressed down on her. He kissed his way down her neck, between her breasts, and over her stomach as he inched her flannel bottoms off.
He stood just looking down at her. She was naked and exposed to him. “God, you’re beautiful.” His voice was soft.
Tabitha fought the urge to cover her body, which, like his, was lit only by the light from the hallway. She could see in his eyes he wasn’t judging her, he wasn’t expecting too much of her either, he was strictly admiring her.
What kind of foreplay was this? Her heart squeezed in her chest and she was afraid it was the worst kind. It was the kind that took you under and you couldn’t breathe. The kind that made you worry about someone else for the rest of your life and made you never want to spend a moment apart from him.
She knew what was happening, and even so, she watched as he undressed. Her fingers dug into the comforter as she fought to rip the rest of his clothing from him. But as each layer was stripped away she simply admired the beauty of his skin, his muscles, and his confidence.
He stopped what had been a beautiful strip tease and took a moment to pull his wallet from his pant pocket. He laid it on the bed next to her and then he pressed his naked body to hers.
When she felt his heart beat next to hers she tumbled farther into that abyss that she’d fought for so long.
Their mouths met again in a fiery kiss that had them each fighting for breath. Their skin, pressed together, heated. Her hands moved down his back and over the curve of his tight bottom. She give it a squeeze which pushed his erection between her legs and she gasped. She couldn’t wait for him any longer. In fact, it wasn’t the sex he promised with his hard body pressed to hers. She simply couldn’t live without him one moment more.
Preston reached for his wallet and took a condom out from the back.
“You were prepared, huh?” She fought to not make the moment less than it was, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Boy scout,” he said ripping the wrapper. “But yes. Since the minute I met you, I’ve been hopefully prepared.”
“Oh.” Disappointment filled her voice and her stomach clenched. “Is this what you want from me?”
He stopped and his eyes opened wide. “No. No. I’ll stop.” He shifted. “I mean don’t get me wrong. I want to make love to you more than anything.” He looked down between his legs and back up at her. “Obviously. But, Tabitha, what I feel for you is so much more than sex.”
“Really?”
He leaned in closer to her. “I know you don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do. The moment I looked into those chocolate brown eyes I was gone.”
“You’re saying you fell in love with me?”
“I’m saying that’s how strong my feelings are for you. Yes.” He brushed a stand of hair from her eyes. “I fell in love with you.”
God, that was just what she’d expected from him. Now here she was falling into the same trap her mother and Brie fell into too often. A man spoke to her softly and undressed her with gentle hands. He’d covered her body in perfectly placed kisses and now he said he’d fallen in love with her.
But looking at him she couldn’t help but believe him. She wanted to believe that love could come so quickly and last forever. Then again, as he slid his hand over her stomach and it twitched inside, she didn’t care. She rolled over and straddled him.
“You love me?” She looked down at him and he gripped her hips.
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to fall in love with you?”
“No, but it would be nice.”
Tabitha swallowed hard. “I’ve never been in love before.”
“Then I’ll take my time with you.”
If only she could say the words this would be when they should be said. She wanted to love him. She wanted everything from him.
“Tabitha, we either need to decide to do this or get dressed. You’re killing me.”
“I want to. I really want to.”
“Good.” He rolled her over, back onto her back. He took the condom and rolled it on. “I thought I was going to have to go throw myself into a snow bank.”
He moved himself on top of her and she reached her hands around to pull him closer. “You make me very happy.”
“I’ll take that.”
“I’m going to screw this up.” She bit down on her lip as she felt him ease in closer.
“We both are. That’s what love and relationship is all about.”
He pushed inside of her and her head fell back. His arms held her tight and his lips pressed warm to her throat. She’d done it. She’d fallen in love and she didn’t know what to do about it. But as he moved in and out of her, she wrapped her legs around him and urged him deeper. Not just deeper into her body but into her soul. This was what it was about. This was the falling.
As the rhythm picked up and her fingers dug into his flesh, she fought the urge to wonder about the crash. She desperately wanted to enjoy the fall.
Preston pushed her hair back from her face and gazed down at her as she felt every muscle in her body tighten. She bit down on her quivering lip and her breath quickened as his pace grew faster.
“I love you, Tabitha. I want to make you happy.”
His eyes drew closed and he dropped his head into the crevice of her neck. The moan that came out might have belonged to her, it might not have. All she knew was she’d never felt like this before. Her body rode a wave of pleasure and as his body quivered atop of hers she felt him grip tighter to her as if she were falling away. But in actuality she was falling with him.
Then he lay still and she fought for her breath.
“That was awesome.” He whispered on a ragged breath in her ear as he adjusted his weight.
“Was it?”
“Oh, don’t shoot me down. Yes it was.” He caressed her face and kissed her. “You didn’t think it was awesome?”
“It was.” She wanted to cover up feeling the chill of the room and the unmistakable cold of regret. “So many things were running through my head.”
Preston rolled off her and lay on his back. “I thought I was better at this. But she’s making grocery lists.” He beat a little rhythm with his fingers on his chest.
“No.” She sat up and the nakedness didn’t matter. “No, it wasn’t like that. I was accounting for the fact that I’d never fallen in love before. I didn’t know what to think. I had to place the feelings. I had to…”
“Wait.” The grin on his face was wide and he sat up to look her in the eyes. “Did you just say what I think you did?”
“I… what?” Oh he was taking her words and twisting them, but she wasn’t really sure what she’d said.
“You said you’d never fallen in love before and you didn’t know what to do with the feelings.”
“Right, that’s what I said. I wasn’t making…”
“Shh.” He pressed his lips to hers. “You just said you fell in love with me.”
Tabitha took a breath to counter, but realized that was exactly what she’d said. God, she’d just told him, in her own screwed up way, that she loved him.
The room was silent except for the pounding of her own heart resonating through her body. She wasn’t cold any longer, now heat engulfed her.
What was she to do? What should she say now?
There wasn’t a moment to think about it. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
“This is different for me too. I’ve told women I love them, I won’t lie. But I’ve never felt it like this before.” He tangled his hands in her hair and kissed her hard enough she could feel her teeth cutting into the back of her lips. “This is great.”
“Wait.” She pressed her palms to his chest to give herself some space, but Preston Banks was a bigger man than she’d even first thought. He wasn’t budging anywhere. “But we’ve only known each other a week.”
“Long enough.”
“This isn’t right.” Her tone was defensive and his grin infuriated her.
“Oh, yes it is.” He scooped her legs up and carried her around the room, making little circles as he waltzed her to the other side of the bed. “I’m going to make love to you all night and you’re going to have to tell me again and again how much you love me.”
Tabitha wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t push it, Banks.”
He laughed and laid her on the bed looking down at her with a grin that teetered between sexy and funny. “I’ll have to take tomorrow off.” He took his watch off and laid it on the nightstand.
“Why?”
“Because,” he knelt down next to her, “I’m going to make love to you all night until I can convince you to marry me. You’ll be too tired to do all that work alone tomorrow.”
“Convince me of what?” She sat up and smacked heads with him. She cursed. He laughed.
“C’mon, Tabitha. Fall a little further.” He lowered her back to the bed. “You don’t have to rationalize this.” He traced her lips with his finger and then with his tongue. “Fall, Tabitha. Fall in love with me.” He rolled on top of her and began making her forget all about arguing with him.
Chapter Seven
Tabitha piped little roses on decadent pieces of chocolate with a shaky hand. The burst of cold that waved through the workroom when the front door opened had her cursing as she messed up yet another delicate flower.
Brie bounced into the room like Tigger on his tail. She hung up her coat whistling a tune that Tabitha couldn’t place. She draped her apron over her head and tied it around her waist, then turned to grin at Tabitha. “I knew you’d be in here working too early.”
“Early? It’s seven. I’m always here by now.”
“I know. You don’t have a life.” She headed for the sink to wash her hands. “If you did, you’d understand the joy of sleeping in.”
“I do to have a life.” She cursed again as she scraped yet another damaged flower from the chocolate.
“You’re in a mood again.” Brie waltzed through the room and stood in front of her studying her. “You had a fight with Preston.”
“No. I did not.” She piped another flower, and though not perfect, she was going to let it slide.
“You didn’t fight with him, but your hair is an absolute mess, you don’t even have on your obligatory mascara, and you’re scowling.”
Tabitha shot her head up and glared at her, but instead of getting to work like Tabitha had hoped, the grin on Brie’s face widened and she grabbed Tabitha’s hands shooting red frosting from the tube to the table.
“Oh, my God, you got laid!”
“Stop it.” Tabitha snapped back her hands. “Get to work.”
“I want details. I want lots of details.”
“You’re not getting any. I don’t want to talk to you.” She went back to piping flowers.
But Brie didn’t go anywhere. She pulled a stool up the table and perched herself a top of it. Setting her elbows on the table, she rested her face in her hands, and stared at Tabitha with her annoying grin plastered on her lips. “So how was it? How was he? I can’t believe you slept with him.” She reached across the table and gripped Tabitha’s hands again. “I can’t believe you finally got laid.”
“I thought that was how men talked.” Preston’s voice boomed through the shop from the doorway. He stood there with a tray of coffee and a brown bag in his hands. “You’re kissing and telling?” Tabitha hated that he looked so sexy with that grin on his lips, especially when all she wanted to do was punch him for playing into Brie’s asinine gossip.
As soon as Brie saw him, she squealed and jumped down from her stool. She ran to him and enveloped him in a huge hug, forcing him to balance the tray of coffees, and then placed a big noisy kiss on his cheek.
“You got her. You got her!”
Preston chuckled. “I got her.”
“Are you two thirteen?” Tabitha threw down the tube of frosting. “This isn’t open for discussion.”
Brie stomped her feet in a little dance. “It should be. I’m dying for some deets.”
“Deets?”
“Details.” Brie bounced back to her stool and sat down. She shifted her eyes between Tabitha and Preston. “So whose going to tell me. Was it good?”
Preston walked toward Tabitha and handed her a coffee. He took a moment to gaze into her eyes and then placed a soft kiss on her lips. No matter how mad she was at that moment, she felt it slip away as he lingered his lips on hers.
He glanced at Brie. “It was fucking awesome.” He smiled then gave Tabitha’s butt a swat.
That was all it took to make the anger pulse through her again. She pushed her hands into his chest and he stumbled back and out of her way. Tabitha took her coffee and huffed off to her office. She slammed the door and then kicked it hard enough she was sure she’d broken a toe.
Tabitha hopped over to the chair that faced her desk, her hot coffee wobbling in her hand. She set it on the desk and then fell into the chair. Her foot ached now. Temper sizzled in her veins and embarrassment washed over her.
Why was she so put off by being in love and having had great sex with a man? Brie was forever giving her
deets
about her encounters and sadly, Tabitha had listened, intently, to all of her tales. Even her own mother had come into the store on more than one occasion and shared details of evenings with men, which was a little too much for Tabitha to handle, but she’d done it.
So why couldn’t she tell her best friend that she’d had the most amazing night with Preston? That he’d touched her in all the right places and melted her with kisses. Why was it a shameful secret that they’d had sex no less than five times and she’d only had three hours sleep. The man had taken off work to go into the store and help her put out her orders, when in one day he could make more than she’d make in a month.
It was love and she knew that, but she couldn’t even embrace what was going on around her and enjoy it. No, now she sat in her office with a broken toe, red fingers from spilled icing, and an attitude as bad as her hairdo.
She hated that she couldn’t even enjoy the moment and that was all she wanted to do. She wanted to embrace love. She wanted to be giddy and tell her best friend all the deets. She wanted to run out into that other room, kiss Preston Banks until he ran out of breath, and then tell him she’d marry him in some spur of the moment wedding.
Instead, she hobbled around to the other side of her desk and began to call her vendors for the supplies she’d need delivered.
Tabitha made her last phone call and sat quietly at her desk. She could hear the radio in the other room playing and muffled voices beyond the door. A glance at the clock and she realized she’d been hole up in her office all morning. The rumbling in her stomach alerted her that it was lunchtime and she’d never eaten the pastry Preston had brought with the coffee.
It was time to stop hiding and face the music. She’d had sex with Preston Banks and now Brie knew all about it. Big deal, she thought as she readjusted the ponytail at the back of her head.
Tabitha hobbled to the door, now sure that she’d only bruised her foot and not broken her toe. Slowly she opened the door and stood amazed that the only person in the room was Brie.
“You’re alone?”
“Yes, well, this is my job.” Brie boxed up chocolates in a printed white box and set them in the stack to be sealed.
“I mean I heard voices. Where is Preston?”
“He has a life you know.” She was being short with her and Tabitha didn’t like it, but she was in no position to argue otherwise.
“Are you hungry?”
Brie put a lid on the box she’d just filled with an assortment of chocolates and turned to glare at her. “I’m starving. I’ll fly if you buy.”
Tabitha replaced the frown that was hurting her face, with an evenly forced smile. “I’ll fly and buy, if you don’t mind. I need a few moments out.”
Brie nodded. “I hear there’s a great pizza joint not too far from here.”
Tabitha clenched her jaw and balled her hands into fists at her side. “So is that what’s been going on out here? You got all the gossip you wanted?”
“Whoa!” Brie held up her hands and laughed. “Paranoid. No, he didn’t give away any gossip. In fact, he was quite concerned that you never came out of your office. Furthermore, the only information I got out of him was that he took you for pizza the other night. Hence, the reason I’m hungry for it now. Is that all okay with you?”
“He was concerned about me?”
“That’s what happens when people fall in love, Tabitha.” She turned back to her assembly of candy boxes. “Not that you’ve gone and done that at all. Or at least not that you’ll tell me. I want pepperoni by the way and a big soda.”
She grabbed her coat and purse from the hook and left the store.
When Tabitha walked through the door of the restaurant, where she’d dined with Preston only a few days earlier, she groaned. There was a line seven people deep. This was why she didn’t leave the store during lunchtime. But she at least owed Brie lunch for being so snippy at her all morning.
She stepped up into the line and nearly screamed as someone in the booth to her right reached out and grabbed her hand.
“I have a seat for you all ready if you’d consider joining me.”
Preston looked up at her with those dark eyes and his sexy grin. She noticed there was a pizza on the table, two drinks, and an empty plate next to him.
“You knew I was coming here?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Brie likes to plan things out.”
Tabitha blew out a hard breath. “Yes she does, but this is none of her business.”
Preston stood from the booth and guided her to it. She slid in and he did the same sitting right next to her as if to block her in and keep her from escaping. He took a slice of pizza from the tray and put it on her plate. Then he filled her cup with soda from the pitcher, which sat on the table. “Eat.”
Tabitha sat still for another moment, her hands in her lap clenched into fists. “Why are you doing this?”
“Eating pizza? Because Brie mentioned it and it made me hungry.”
“Why are you even still talking to me? I was childish back at the store. I shouldn’t worry about what other people think about what I do in the privacy of my own home, but I lashed out at you and my best friend.” She turned her head to look him in the eye. “Why do you want to be with me?”
Preston lifted his pizza slice to his mouth, took a bite, and considered her as he chewed. “I think you have it all figured out all ready.”
“I don’t have anything figured out. I’m a wreck.” She looked at the pizza, but didn’t pick it up yet. She just wasn’t ready to taste food when the vile taste of shame was thick on her tongue.
“You’re so caught up on not letting anyone near you, you’re trying to push us all away. The only person who seems to be able to whittle away at you is my mother. In case you haven’t notice she’s a little invasive.”
“She is not.” She finally picked up the pizza slice and just held it. “I envy her. She’s so confident.”
“So are you. You just keep making excuses to not let others see it.”
Tabitha set the slice back on the plate. “I thought you were trying to be nice to me.”
“I am being nice to you. I bought you pizza. By the way, save a slice for Brie. I have to take some back with us.” He bit into his slice. He swallowed his bite and washed it down with soda. “Let go. You don’t have to be a hard ass because you think you have to protect yourself from living like your mother, who, by the way, is very happy.”
“Love should be one time, not many.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. Don’t you believe in forever?”
“Yes. But I’m not one to deny those who keep diving in trying to find it either.”
She opened her mouth to argue and then shut it and sunk into the booth. Was that what her mother was doing? She was testing the waters? Did her mother think forever was there and was so willing to gamble to find it that she took chances with her heart every chance she got. Then there was Tabitha who didn’t gamble at all and was miserable waiting for it?
A young bus boy walked past the table and Preston asked for a box and a large soda cup. The boy returned with the box and cup and Preston began to put the rest of the pizza in it while Tabitha sat silently thinking about what he’d said.
“If you’re not going to eat that now take it back with you. Don’t waste it,” he said closing the box and filling the cup with the rest of the soda in the pitcher.